Bill Clinton Had Blunt Words During 1997 Speech Prep

President Clinton waves from the podium before beginning his State of the Union address before a joint meeting of Congress at the Capitol on Tuesday Feb. 4, 1997

Associated Press

As then-President Bill Clinton prepped for his State of the Union address in 1997, he offered his advisers blunt thoughts on everything from the desired racial make-up of the crowd to his failure to pass a health-care plan.

A new batch of documents released Friday by the Clinton Library includes a transcript of a conversation Mr. Clinton had with unnamed advisers less than a week before his State of the Union speech on Feb. 4, 1997. (See pages 171-192.) Mr. Clinton did most of the talking, offering a long list of suggestions about every aspect of the address and lobbying to make it longer.

As they discussed guests they might invite and people in the crowd who were likely to be shown on television during the speech, the president weighed in with some ideas about diversity. Mr. Clinton suggested that Gary Locke, a Chinese American who then was governor of Washington, should be featured prominently.

“You might think about putting Locke up there,” Mr. Clinton said. “And I’d like to do it because it’s a real finder in the eye to all those Asian bashers … and Jim Hunt – hell, I can mention him in the crowd if he’s out there. He’s got an Asian wife, too. And she’s beautiful. She’s a fine person.”

As the group discussed efforts to ensure that children can read at grade level, an adviser described the planned optics for the speech. They discussed inviting schoolchildren.

During the last several months, the Clinton Library has been releasing thousands of pages of documents that had not previously been made public. Friday’s batch offered another glimpse into the Clinton White House, pulling back the curtain on a few frank conversations the president had with his staff.

According to the transcript, as Mr. Clinton worked his way through a draft of the State of the Union speech, he acknowledged some of the limitations of his proposals.

“I don’t think we should say that we can meet all our obligations because my own view is that we don’t meet all our obligations in this plan,” Mr. Clinton told his advisers. “We don’t do diddly squat about health care, and I just don’t think we should say that.”

Later, Mr. Clinton said he had called then-Sen. Bob Kerrey to mull over how to speak about the issue of uninsured Americans in the State of the Union Speech. By then, Mr. Clinton’s proposed health-care plan had been defeated, and the president was contemplating how to revisit the issue.

“I just said, look, Bob, we tried the health care before, and I said, we’re not doing (expletive) to increase coverage,” Mr. Clinton said of his conversation with the senator. “I said, I’m doing the best I can in this budget on children, but what do you think I ought to say?”

In the end, the president’s speech included only a brief section about health care that noted his plans to insure more children but offered no major proposals cover most of the 40 million Americans who lacked health insurance then.

As Mr. Clinton talked with his advisers about plans to mobilize thousands of reading tutors, the president lamented the lack of a hotline for Americans who might want to volunteer to help.

“We need to have an 800 number or something where people who want to do this can call in and then get referred back to their local reading program,” Mr. Clinton said. “I wish to God we had an 800 number to call that I could put in this speech.”

Throughout the meeting, Mr. Clinton repeatedly suggested adding more details and new sections to the speech, as his advisers proposed possible trims to the address.

“I know all we’ve done today is make it longer,” Mr. Clinton said as the conversation concluded. “But now we’ve got something we can go with. Now we’ve got some meat and potatoes.”

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